No more of simple-minded politicians

30 Nov, 2014 - 00:11 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

On November 15, 2014 Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa was unanimously nominated Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association (ZNLWA) chair. Prior to the association’s elective congress in Masvingo, ZNLWA elders had condemned the previous executive, led by Jabulani Sibanda, for deviating from the national ethos and neglecting its members.

Our Reporter Itai Mazire spoke to Cde Mutsvangwa about ZNLWA’s fresh outlook and mandate, factionalism in Zanu-PF and an envisaged economic re-birth.

We publish Cde Mutsvangwa in his own words.

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Factionalism is the worst scourge that can befall a revolutionary movement.

It is a mortal menace when it embraces external agendas driven by the traditional and implacable enemies of the people.

In its current manifestation, factionalism is actually the re-incarnation of post-colonial oligopolist business interests.

Never keen to re-construct, these business interests long for the return of the old racist colonial order.

They hanker for the halcyon days of imperialist and racist Cecil John Rhodes’ British South Africa Company and its predatory conquest of the people of the plateau we re-christened as Zimbabwe.

They also pine for the racially exclusive dominance of business capital as practised by Ernest Oppenheimer and his Anglo-American Corporation.

Used to the age-old imperial practice of the divide and rule of indigenous majorities, they sought pliant, empty-headed but vain Africans as on-side allies to infiltrate, subvert and ultimately undermine the national liberation movement and its endeavours towards inclusive human progress.

That’s why we had political goons; the likes of Tendai Savanhu, Ray Kaukonde, Enock Porusingazi et al strutting on the national business stage positing as successful men of capital.

Worse, they clung to the revolutionary coattails of our simple-minded Vice-President Mujuru to confuse the national political landscape.

They even had the temerity to recruit and rope in the then leader of our historic and esteemed war veterans’ association into their nefarious enterprise as they sought to pervert our painfully earned legitimacy.

Luckily, we, the war veterans, were there to see through all this political chicanery and were ready to move against these impostors once the First Family began exposing the rot that was now afflicting Zanu-PF and the nation at large.

We have the unique advantage of historical experience which is ready to serve under the aegis of our iconic leader President Mugabe.

Rich in the experience deriving from life-long service to the people, he excels in visionary leadership, profiting from unparalleled hindsight.

We have moved quickly to blunt this latest reactionary onslaught, exorcise the party of the ghost of factionaries, marginalised compromised ambition and even cleansed the ranks of the cadreship by ridding the few particularly bad elements.

We responded promptly to the call to re-organise our ranks to fill in the void occasioned by the expulsion of the former leadership.

We did this through a successful congress held at the historic Great Zimbabwe complex for appropriate inspiration.

We emerged with a united, focused national leadership steeped in the glorious traditions of our Zanla-Zipra forces of the national liberation war.

Employing our tested vigilance, we have been identifying and exposing the rot in the party and, where needed, ridding of dangerous impostors and infiltrators.

We also need to remind that we have 34 years of experience in nation-building.

We firmly believe in a democratic law-abiding nation, which is the progeny of our effort and sacrifice. As we discharge our duty to party and nation, we must do it in a judicious manner that shuns excess and abuse. We cherish a united all-embracing party that harnesses energy towards the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio Economic Transformation and the delivery of long-cherished economic prosperity.

We are conscious never to lose sight of the main goal.

All said, we are working hard to ensure the party goes to Congress with unity of purpose and a tight organisation structure as envisioned by the tried and tested leadership of our patron, President Mugabe.

We also hope that the current events can serve as an opportunity for deep introspection by our Vice-President Mujuru. Through unrestrained greed, flattering adulation and unbridled ambition, she had become a will victim to all negative forces.

Her stewardship of the national economy during her decade of tenure was marked by sloth, incompetence and widespread atrophy.

Sadly, she put so much energy and fanfare into opening poultry runs as opposed to cutting ribbons on important national projects like dams, bridges, roads and rail, power stations, sewerages and factories.

Denied of good intellect and bereft of vision, she was floundering all over while the nation slid from stagnation to regress.

No more of that nonsense as of the Congress this week.

It takes a great leap of faith called vision to offer one’s only life to the cause of national re-birth through voluntary recourse to the call of arms.

That is what the critical mass generation of the armed struggle demonstrated in the 1970s.

Give that heroic generation of fighters the credit as they promptly dispensed with racist minority rule and ushered in Zimbabwe. Those who were lucky to survive that human sausage machine have lived to employ their vision now sharpened with acquired vigilance to help safeguard and consolidate our national independence.

On crucial occasions in the last three decades, especially in 2008, that rose to trying challenges posed by a tenacious and cunning enemy ever adept at changing methods as they sought to subvert and destroy the future of the people of Zimbabwe to their own benefit of voracious greed.

Young men and women never sacrifice their only lives for the common good unless they see the prospects of unfettered opportunities for the surviving collective of their nation.

Having seen off the host of national puppets, and now cleansing the ranks of the national liberation movement, the long-sought moment has finally arrived.

This is Prime Time Zimbabwe.

Our rich and varied resources are finally under our authority in a land with a climate to envy.

We have over the years invested so much in our human resource capability. Just take notice of ready acceptability of our Diaspora in various global markets. Riding on a flawless command of the cosmopolitan English language, our Diaspora’s labour and skills market prowess is a matter of envy.

We have proved that our education system can deliver a human product that is as convertible as the vaunted American dollar in the global labour market place.

We also have given birth to a state machinery that answers strictly and faithfully to Zimbabwe’s defence and security needs as it gropes for the national development agenda that engenders a new economy to benefit its people.

Most importantly, we have a leader who the great Almighty has blessed with a long life that has made us weather all sorts of national challenges in the grand task of nation-building.

Fortuitously, he married Dr Grace Mugabe, a spouse who embraced his vision, has been an avid student who took time to focus on the national agenda.

Her alert mind to the goings-on at the centre of power has turned out to be an invaluable resource.

Her revelations have assisted in rendering clarity to our long-held agonies about the afflictions to the party and Government. She just made it all that easy and simple to identify problems and direct our energies to proper and right solutions with minimum confusion.

She helped us ambush the enemy who has been caught flat-footed.

Now that we have the wise leadership, the political stability, the vigilant educated and hard-working populace, what are we going to do with all this?

We will get to Congress unfettered by the negative political baggage we have been busy dispensing with of late.

The Congress will be a celebration of past victories.

Further, it will be a grand national platform for President Mugabe to propound a new economic charter under the banner of Zim-Asset.

We will harness our own domestic capital resource into national investment for unprecedented growth. We will ply our rich endowment resources to global partners from far and wide so we generate maximum national benefit.

We will work hard to make Zimbabwe the preferred destination of business.

The agent of economic growth is a business person enjoying the support of a responsive national leadership.

We will strive, as a nation, to create a new national business class that will take its rightful role in global commerce. Yes, we will take inspiration from our ancestors from the Great Zimbabwe civilisation of the Iron Age.

Their mastery of agricultural techniques engendered great food surpluses.

The ensuing food security freed human endeavour to pursue mining and trade on a grand scale.

Arab dhows would follow monsoon winds to pick rich cargoes of gold in exchange for Oriental and Middle Eastern merchandise.

That’s how Masvingo’s Great Zimbabwe and Khami earned us the coveted Unesco heritage site status.

Our ancestors were sure masters of global commerce. We are poised to reclaim that heritage.

This will be the central theme of the coming Congress.

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